Content Recognition lets you decide how you want Acrolinx to recognize different versions of your content. This gives you more exact and useful analytics.
There are two ways Acrolinx can recognize your content. The approach you choose will depend on your organization's workflows and content types.
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Content Reference - Lets you define exactly how Acrolinx should recognize your content. This option gives you fine-grained control since you can define a different Content Reference for each content type via Content Profiles.
For example, you could use the document file path or some content-specific metadata. If you know that a document's file path won't change or that your content includes some stable and unique metadata, use Content Reference.
Tip
By default, Acrolinx uses the Content Reference method to recognize your content, and uses your content's file path as its reference.
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Content Fingerprint - Lets Acrolinx recognize your content for you. Acrolinx looks at the written content itself, and doesn't rely on file paths or metadata.
This is a global option that applies across all your content types. For this reason, it's great for workflows where you copy content between different file types. It also works well for workflows where files might move and metadata might change over time.
In this method, Acrolinx uses the file path as the unique reference for your content by default. Basically, what you see as the "Source" in a Scorecard is the default reference.
If you're happy with this, then you don't need to change anything. But maybe you have a better way of recognizing your content.
Why would you need a better way? Well, consider the following scenario.
You're working on a Markdown file called "introduction-to-demo-inc-greeblies.md." You've moved it to a few different locations and even changed your mind about the file name just before you published it.
Your checking statistics might evolve as follows:
|
Check Time |
File Path |
Content Reference |
Score |
Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
First version |
|
|
65 |
No Previous Data |
|
Revised version |
|
|
78 |
No Previous Data |
|
Final version |
|
|
84 |
No Previous Data |
The last column shows "No Previous Data" because Acrolinx treats each version as a separate file rather than different iterations of the same file.
To get around this problem, you can tell Acrolinx to use a different reference. As long as you have an attribute that's stable across content versions, Acrolinx will recognize that content.
Tip
You can also take the content reference directly from the document as long as you can reach it with an XPath.
For example, the front matter in your Markdown file might have a "slug" parameter. You've set the slug to "greeblies-intro" and it doesn't change between the different versions. You can configure Acrolinx to use the value for the "slug" parameter as the content reference.
Your checking statistics would now evolve as follows:
|
Check Time |
File Path |
Content Reference |
Score |
Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
First version |
|
|
65 |
No Previous Data |
|
Revised version |
|
|
78 |
+13 |
|
Final version |
|
|
84 |
+6 |
The "Improvement" column shows progress because all scores are attributed to the "greeblies-intro" content reference.
You might have a workflow where an article starts its life in a word processor like Microsoft Word. Then, it's copied into an XML editor like XMetaL Author and, finally, it makes its way into a CMS like Adobe Experience Manager. You want to see how each step in that process influences your content alignment. But, those different versions of your content don't share a file path or any other unique metadata attribute. The content itself is the only thing that links those versions of your article.
Enter the Content Fingerprint. With this method, Acrolinx groups the content that you check based on the similarity of the text. If your content moves or the format changes, Acrolinx will recognize the similarity in the substance of each article. It'll then treat them as different versions of the same article. In cases where there isn't enough content for Acrolinx to make a decision, it'll revert to the default Content Reference method.